This document describes how to perform a comparative demonstration of MacSign™ 4.0.3, Softeam’s signmaking application, on a 68K-based Macintosh and on a Power Macintosh. Performing the demo script below will take approximately 2 minutes on a 68K-based Macintosh.
OVERVIEW
MacSign™ is a drawing application which has been specially designed for Signmaking. The application contains a fully featured vector based drawing palette and also lets you read in documents from almost all the other vector base drawing applications on the Macintosh like Adobe Illustrator™, Aldus Freehand™, Canvas™, TypeStyler™ and others. Drawing tools like the outline tool, which creates an outline of a given path, are up to 8 times faster in the native version than they are on the 68K version. The application also allows you to export your drawings to any signmaking plotter and lets you plot your jobs in background or on a remote Macintosh.
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
In order to run this demo, the following system requirements should be met:
• Any Apple Power Macintosh
• Any Apple Macintosh family personal computer.
• Apple Macintosh System Software version 7.0 or later.
• Hard disk drive with 2 megabytes of free space.
• 6 MB of RAM memory, 8 MB recommended.
• A 14” monitor or larger (better), 256 of colors preferred.
• Adobe Type Manager (ATM) 2.0 or later.
SETUP
This section covers the intial setup of the MacSign 4.0.3 software for the following demo. The setup procedure is identical for Macintosh and Power Macintosh.
• Create a “MacSign Demo” folder on your hard disk.
• Copy the application “MacSign 4.0.3” from the CD into the “MacSign Demo” folder.
If you have a 68K based Macintosh computer like a Centris 650 or a Quadra 800, then copy “MacSign 4.0.3 68K”; if you have a 68K based Macintosh computer with no floating point unit like the Centris 610, Quadra 610, LC 630, LC 475 and so on, then copy “MacSign 4.0.3 68K NoFPU”; for Power Macintosh computer copy “MacSign 4.0.3 PPC”.
• Copy the document “ProdUmbria” from the CD into the “MacSign Demo” folder.
Before to run MacSign:
• Adjust MacSign’s memory allocation so to have free at least 200 KBytes of RAM for System’s activities. To change the memory allocation for MacSign, select the MacSign Application in the Finder and choose “Get Info” from the File menu, select the number in “Current Size” box, type the correct number and close the “Get Info” window.
• Select a printer in the “Chooser” dialog box.
Your demo is now set up.
Note: For more in-depth information on the installation of MacSign 4.0.3, please refer the ReadMe! document.
DEMO SCRIPT
1. Double-click on the icon to launch MacSign 4.0.3. A warning dialog appears. Click the OK button to create the default Preferences file.
2. Click inside the close box in the upper left corner of the window to close the empty document.
3. Select Open… from the File menu. Select document “ProdUmbria” and click on Open button.
4. Select the outer path of ProdUmbria logo by clicking on it.
The path is highlighted.
5. Select Enlarged Selection from the Magnification submenu from the View menu.
The selected path is rescaled and centered so it can be entirely and precisely displayed in the work window.
6. Select the Outline tool (the Outline tool is the second one on the left starting from the bottom of the tool palette).
7. Click in the work window while holding down the Option key.
The Outline dialog box appears.
8. Click the Outline and Mitered option, type 0.5 in the Outline distance field and click on OK button.
The parallel path appear. This is a time consuming task (all performed in floating point). MacSign will take approx. 16 seconds to perform the recalculation on a Quadra 800. It will take approx. 2 seconds do the same on a Power Macintosh 8100/80.
9. Select Quit from the File menu to leave MacSign.
